High Tech Household

I have been wanting to build a Home Theater PC for a while, but was waiting for the launch of Windows 7 to do so.  When Windows 7 was released on October 22, I started researching what I would need to assemble my own Home Theater PC, and began ordering parts.  Last week, the parts arrived for building my home theater PC using Windows 7 Media Center.  I spent a good deal of Friday night and Saturday putting it together and getting it ready for use.  By Saturday afternoon, I had the PC up and running and connected to my television.

Windows 7 Media Center has a lot to offer as a Home Theater PC (or really, a Home Entertainment PC), including Recording and Playback of TV (DVR-functionality), Movies and Netflix, Hulu and Internet TV, Music and Photo Libraries, and more, all controlled via a remote control and optional wireless keyboard.  Media Center also supports hardware (called Media Center Extenders) that allow you to stream your Media Center content to other TVs throughout your home.  What sets Media Center apart from just a traditional DVR or TiVo is the extensibility.  Third party developers, enthusiasts, and hobbiest programmers can create programs that extend the functionality of Windows 7 Media Center, much like people write apps for smart phones such as the iPhone and Google Android.   Best of all, it comes included in all editions of Windows 7.

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Last month, Brian wrote about his Home Theater PC which he created for streaming web content such as Hulu and YouTube to his television.  I have actively been planning to build my own Home Theater PC for some time, but I had hoped to build in DVR functionality so that I could use my PC as a TiVO-like box, which I could then use to store and burn recordings of shows and movies that I enjoyed.

It turns out that Microsoft Windows Vista included just such functionality through the Windows Media Center, a free Windows extender that allows you to run your media (whether audio, video, or pictures) by use of a remote control, and includes an Electronic Program Guide and ability to DVR, as long as you have a tuner card to which you can connect your incoming TV signal.  However, because of restrictions imposed by the Cable industry, digital cable signals are often scrambled, and require a cable box to be able to change channels.  Most digital cable cards have no ability to descramble these channels, making them useless for any digital cable setup.

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